


The Word Goes Around

by CircularShades



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Preacher (TV)
Genre: Armageddon, Blood and Gore, Crossover, F/M, Family Separation, Gun Violence, Guns, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, Other, Parenthood, Parents Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Torture, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2020-08-09 18:36:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20123011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CircularShades/pseuds/CircularShades
Summary: Thirty years ago, the world didn't end — but Heaven and Hell still want their war. Now it's about to happen again, and just like last time, Crowley and Aziraphale are caught in the middle of it. This time, they're scrambling to track down Genesis, the offspring of their partnership, before it can be manipulated by the agents of violence.Aziraphale has been captured and imprisoned by the apocalyptic shadow organization, the Grail, and his new cellmate is about to give him his first taste of hope. Meanwhile, thousands of miles and an ocean away, Crowley is zeroing in on the man Genesis has chosen for its vessel.This story follows the events of season 4 of Preacher, with a couple of ineffable additions.





	1. An Angel in Masada

**Author's Note:**

> I'm getting wibbly-wobbly with the Good Omens timeline for the purposes of this crossover. I'm more familiar with the show, which took place in current times, and there's bound to be a number of character details and mechanical devices (such as the way the Bentley looks and functions) that bleed in from that version in particular. But in order for the story to work, the Armageddon't had to have happened at least several years ago, and the fact that the book was released in 1990 made that a perfect target.
> 
> tl;dr, Crowley and Aziraphale here are a mashup of show and book canon, which is also why I've put this in both Good Omens tags. Everything Preacher is purely from the show.
> 
> This story is: 1) thoroughly unbeta'd, 2) a result of my compulsive urge to smash these canons together. Anticipated/hoped-for update schedule is once every two weeks, but the real rule is, I need to stay at least one chapter ahead to keep posting.
> 
> About that archive warning: there are no graphic depictions of violence YET, but this is half Preacher, so it's almost inevitable.

“Holy shit.”

Proinsias Cassidy was staring upward, from the bottom of a tall, hollow tower. Above him was an angel, hanging from chains by his arms.

“Oh… is there someone there?” The voice that answered was quiet, though loud enough to echo off the tower walls and make its way down to Cassidy. It was English, and a very proper sort of English too. “I didn’t hear them bring you in. I must have been napping. Have you been here very long?”

Cassidy examined the bright spots on the floor in front of him, cast through the barred window on the door. Too dim and too yellow to be sunlight, and they hadn’t moved an inch since he’d arrived. “Couple of hours, at most.”

“Ah.” The angel’s wings twitched, sending a ruffling sound echoing through the tower. “I don’t suppose you’re very good at climbing, and have a lockpick in your pocket.”

“Nope. Can’t help yeh there.”

“That’s all right,” the angel sighed. “It’s just — they’ve bound me here, you see. Normally, under dire circumstances, if I really needed to, I could miracle my way out of these cuffs, but… alas.”

Cassidy’s eyes lingered on the door, thinking of the tunnels he’d been dragged through before being locked up. “I reckon I could use a miracle myself.”

“I’m sorry.” There was so much gentle goodwill, in those two words. “Whatever’s led you here; whatever reason for which they’ve imprisoned you, nobody deserves this… what’s your name?”

_ What’s it matter _was at the back of his throat when he inhaled, but on the other side of the breath: “Cassidy.”

“My name is Aziraphale. It’s nice to meet you, Cassidy. Did they, ah — take you out of Ireland?”

“No. Dublin’s a long way behind me. I was in New Orleans.” Cassidy looked up, squinting to try and get a better read on the angel’s face. No good — he was high up there. “What about you? Are yeh from Heaven, or London?”

Aziraphale laughed weakly. “Both, I suppose, at one point or another. Although, London, mostly. I run a bookshop in Soho.”

“Oh. Lovely.”

“Fortunate that it was all locked up, when they took me.” He said it with pronounced nonchalance. The stark silence after lasted a hair too long before Aziraphale asked: “Was that you singing, earlier?”

“Mighta been what woke yeh.”

“I don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind, if you wanted to sing some more. Not now, necessarily. Whenever you’d like. I like listening to music. Not much of a dancer.”

Cassidy felt the conversation veering off-road, and took hold of the wheel: “I’ve met angels before, y’know.”

“Have you?” Aziraphale asked. “I’d thought you seemed rather casual for a person seeing their first angel. But then, my social skills might have gotten rusty, since I’ve been here.”

“No, I’ve met a few of ‘em. Didn’t get all their names, but the two blokes — more rough-soundin’ than yourself — there was, eh… Fiore. And Deblanc.”

Another, starker silence.

“You met Deblanc and Fiore.”

“You know ‘em?”

“I — yes.” Aziraphale’s voice had gone very quiet. “They were the ones watching over Genesis.”

“Yeah,” Cassidy said. “That’d be them.”

“They —” Aziraphale started, then interrupted himself. “You know about Genesis?”

“It’s only the whole reason I’m here in this medieval bloody dungeon.” Cassidy leaned his head back against the stones. “The Grail wants Genesis, and because I have the misfortune of knowin’ the guy who’s got it, they think kidnappin’ me is goin’ to help with that. It’s not even the first time they’ve bloody tried it.”

“You…” Aziraphale’s voice had started trembling. “You know where Genesis is.”

“I know who it’s with.” Cassidy wasn’t trying to hide the fact that, at this point, he wished he didn’t. “A man called Jesse Custer. If the Grail’s gambit pays off, he’ll be here soon enough, and Genesis with him.”

“Jesse Custer.” Aziraphale echoed. He rolled every syllable of the name over his tongue, wrapping it in wonderment. “I do hope he survives long enough for me to meet him.”

* * *

Angelville was burning. The once plantation, recent tourist attraction, and more recent shell of its former self in the heart of the Louisiana swamps was spewing smoke from the tunnels under its slave quarters. The rest of the grounds were covered in a blanket of silence. Jesse Custer and Tulip O’Hare were already miles down the road: the dust cloud that had been kicked up when they’d peeled out had already had time to settle.

Across the road from the gate, under the lush leaves of a sycamore tree, an antique car had been parked. It was obviously an antique, and yet in immaculate condition: gleaming black and not a mark on it. Even the mud of the swamp had been repelled from its undercarriage.

The Bentley waited, patiently, until a voice broke the silence, ringing out from inside the house.

_ “FUCK!” _

Crowley came tearing back down the drive path. He was swearing and spitting as he went, muttering to himself about being too late, always too blessedly late; only just got the trail back, of _ course _it’d moved on.

“Can’t have got far,” he concluded, a hope ground out through gritted teeth while he climbed into the driver’s seat. The Bentley’s engine roared in agreement: they couldn’t be too many miles behind, and it could go _fast. _As Crowley pulled it back out onto the road, the car switched on its radio and sang.

_ Kings will be crowned, the word goes around  
_ _ From father to son, to son... _


	2. A Demon in New Orleans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who's left hits, kudos, bookmarks, and comments so far! Chapter Three will be delayed due to DragonCon, but the work continues! Enjoy Chapter Two.
> 
> Want to follow the process? You can find me @ShadesCircular on Twitter.

Tulip and Jesse had almost made it off the dirt road when they found themselves approaching an obstruction. Tulip, at the wheel as always, peered through the windshield over her sunglasses.

“Why is there a ‘30s Bentley blockin’ the road?”[1]

Jesse was looking straight ahead with her, and wasn’t even bothering to lower his shades. “Maybe we should ask the guy standin’ next to it.”

The guy standing next to it had his own eyes hidden behind a set of circular lenses, and looked painfully fashionable for this part of the country. As they slowed to a stop, he sauntered toward Jesse’s side of the car. It was very much a saunter, the sort of gait that said this encounter was very much expected, though the stiffness in his posture kept it from appearing casual. His shoulders were practically up by his ears.

Jesse rolled down his window and studied the man from behind his sunglasses. “You run outta gas?”

“Needed you to stop.” The man had an English accent, and his voice sounded as tense as his shoulders looked. “We need to talk.”

“Mister,” Tulip nodded out the windshield of her car, toward the Bentley. “I stopped cause that is a really nice car. But I’m just about done admirin’ it, and we got someplace to be, so if you want somethin’ —”

“I know what’s inside you,” he blurted out, then corrected, with a finger pointed at Jesse. “I mean — I know what’s in your head. I’m asking you to hear me out.”

** _“Back away from the window.” _ ** Jesse watched as the man instantly straightened up and took a few staggering steps backward, stopping once he was out of reach, then sinking slowly to his knees. He looked shell-shocked, stunned into silence, as if Genesis had delivered a physical hit. Jesse took advantage of the pause to turn to Tulip. “For somethin’ that’s so supposedly secret, an awful lot of people seem to be in on it.”

Tulip just shrugged. Jesse sighed — he couldn’t blame her for not having an answer.

“Just be ready for anything.” Jesse’s boots hit the dirt. He left the car door open, and spoke to the man with one arm leaned on top of the window. “Whadda you know about Genesis?”

“It’s a long story, and we don’t have much time.” Jesse rolled his eyes so hard that he rolled his entire head, but the man went on: “I’m an angel. Fallen angel. Slightly fallen. Anthony Crowley.” He held out a hand, which Jesse didn’t take, then seemed to realize he was still on his knees. “Erm — I’m gonna stand up now. If that’s all right.”

“Never told you to get on your knees.” The man — angel — Crowley — seemed to have a natural awkwardness about him. Jesse felt his guard relax a little. He heard the driver’s side door open, and by the time Crowley finished standing, Tulip had joined Jesse on his side of the car, resting against the hood.

Jesse leaned over to Tulip and lowered his voice, as if going for a clandestine aside, only in full view of Crowley. “How are we gonna prove he is what he says he is?”

Tulip, meanwhile, was  _ looking  _ at Crowley openly, and didn’t even bother to lower her voice. “Could shoot him in the head. See if he comes back.”

Crowley’s jaw dropped open as he soundlessly looked between the two of them, eventually stammering out: “Wha — no. Don’t. Do  _ not  _ do that.”

“Why not?” Jesse lifted his head to meet Crowley’s shades with his. “We’ve met angels before. They use up a body, they come right back in a new one.”

Crowley ground his teeth. “I don’t have unlimited bodies. We’ll have to come up with something else — miracles! I can perform miracles. Water to wine…” For example. He shrugged. “Anything you like. Within reason.”

“Sounds good.” Jesse gave a short nod.  ** _“Perform a REAL miracle.”_ **

Both of Crowley’s hands swung upward from his sides, fingers snapping. On the snap, Jesse’s clerical shirt and slacks were swapped out for a loose-fitting onesie, covered in multicolored polka-dots and topped with a wide ruff around the neck. His boots had been changed for bulbous red shoes. A red rubber sphere was clamped onto his nose.

Tulip sputtered out a laugh that turned full-throated after only a second. Crowley grinned. Jesse glared.

“All right, funny. Change them back.”

Crowley leaned in, lips pulled into a sneer. “You didn’t have to take that tone, young man.”

** _“Put my clothes back.”_ **

Crowley’s hands snapped their fingers again, this time flailing more of their own accord, and the clown costume blinked away in favor of Jesse’s usual clothes — all expect the nose, which was, after all, not technically clothes. Jesse scowled, pulled the rubber orb off his face, and tossed it off to the side of the road. Crowley watched it land in the brush with a frown.

“Fallen angel,” Jesse said. “I believe that makes you an agent of Lucifer.”

“Not with him,” Crowley countered. “We were friends, once. All right. But I’m not with Heaven  _ or  _ Hell. I know about the people who are after Genesis, and I want to help make sure they don’t get to do what they want to do with it.”

** _“Is that true?”_ **

“ _ Yes _ , it is.” The answer was as instant as anything Genesis inspired. It was also emphatic. Jesse and Tulip shared a glance, and Crowley went on: “Look, they’ve got someone I care about. You want to keep them from getting Genesis, and so do I. You also have to know, by now, they won’t ever stop trying. The only way to end this is to take it to  _ them.  _ Yes? Better chances if we work together.”

A silent beat passed. Tulip was the one to break it, in another aside to Jesse: “He’s tellin’ the truth?”

“At least about not wantin’ the Grail to have Genesis,” said Jesse.

Tulip crossed her arms, giving Crowley a once-over. “And he does have superpowers.”

“Yep.”

“And they  _ have _ got Cass.”

“Mmhm.”

“And a whole  _ army _ ? I hate to admit it, but we’re in no position to be turnin’ down help —”

“All  _ right _ ,” Jesse insisted and finally held out his hand. Crowley took it. “Jesse Custer — this here’s Tulip. You’re right, we don’t have much time. You’ll explain more once we’re well on our way.”

Tulip eyes did one more sweep down to Crowley’s snakeskin boots, and back up again. “Keep followin’, fallen angel.”

From the inside of the Cheville, they watched Crowley saunter on back to his uncannily spotless Bentley.

“You got a okay feelin’ about him?” Jesse asked.

Tulip hummed. “I’d say it’s more of a ‘keep him close and see where this goes’ sort of a feelin’.”

“Well,” Jesse said, pulling his pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, “if at any point it becomes a bad sort of a feelin’ — then you can shoot him.”

Tulip put the key in the ignition. “You’re mad about the clown outfit, huh?”

“Start the car, Tulip,” Jesse muttered, one side of his lips clamped around the filter.

She laughed over the turn of the engine. “I should’ve taken a picture.”

* * *

The experience once they got to the airport was the breeziest Jesse had ever gone through — it was a lot like the times he’d flown with Herr Starr, only this time with no blindfold and less manhandling. He and Tulip watched Crowley go right up to the first class counter and procure three tickets on the next available flight with little more than a smile[2]. They were waved through security, welcomed at the gate, and escorted to the front of the airplane, where each individual ‘seat’ was more like a personal relaxation pod. A flight attendant offered them hot towels and glasses of champagne as soon as their asses hit the leather-upholstered cushions. Jesse waved off both, then leaned over the edge of his pod to talk to Crowley.

“So, now that we’re all cozy, and we’ve got a long stretch of sittin’ ahead of us: what, exactly, is your interest in Genesis?”

Crowley, who had just drained one of the two champagne glasses he’d taken, set the empty glass down on his personal table tray. “Well…”

* * *

“I suppose you could say I’m its father,” said Aziraphale.

“No shit.” Cassidy couldn’t muster any actual surprise, in the moment, so he let the words speak for themselves. “You’re the angel fell in love with a demon?”

“Yes.” That word said volumes itself, the way it rang soft against the stones. “We helped save the world together, once. About three decades ago. Armageddon was meant to take place well before the turn of the millennium, but… we stopped it. So the Earth could stay here, and we could stay here, together, on it. I do so love the Earth. And… almost all of humanity.”

“I don’t blame yeh for not feelin’ too lovin’ towards the Grail, just now.”

“They’ve always been a…  _ poisonous  _ bunch.” Aziraphale’s voice shook with emotion. “Oh, people do get it so wrong sometimes. Or so I thought… I’m sorry to tell you this, dear boy, but: to Heaven, the point of Earth was always Armageddon. And they don’t care about the lives that’ll be cut short when it comes.”

Cassidy sat with that. A draft whistled through the tunnel outside the cell.

“Well, we all gotta go sometime, don’t we?”

“I’m sure there’s more you’d like to do with your life,” Aziraphale offered with an air of kindness. “Assuming the Grail doesn’t kill you. Sorry. Actually, this is the longest conversation I’ve had in several days, at least. I may be somewhat out of practice.”

“No, you’re doin’ just fine, birdman.” The thought that Cassidy might be dead soon wasn’t exactly revelatory. “You and this demon — you say she and you cancelled the Apocalypse?”

“ _ He _ , actually. And yes. We had a hand in it.”

* * *

“...and Adam, who, remember, currently had control over all of Creation, told Satan he wasn’t his father.” Crowley shrugged, and set down another empty glass. “And so he wasn’t. So Adam wasn’t the Antichrist. No more Antichrist, no more Apocalypse.”

Tulip was sitting in the pod behind Crowley. Jesse glanced away from Crowley and toward her, checking to see if she was believing this. Tulip took the prompt to ask: “And this happened  _ when _ ?”

“‘bout thirty years ago.” Crowley sank a bit lower in his chair, let one knee splay out a bit wider. “Nobody noticed, cause why would they? For most people on Earth, the only thing that changed was that now, nothing was changing.”

“How did Genesis come into it?” Jesse asked.

“It had to do with me and Aziraphale. Working together. The relationship we’d built up over the years. We were an angel and a demon. We weren’t meant to form any sort of relationship, according to the Great Plan.” Crowley pronounced the capital letters in those words, while a flight attendant, for the fifth time without being asked, served him a fresh champagne. “Although, pro tip, it turns out the Great Plan is not necessarily the Ineffable Plan.”

Jesse frowned. “What’s the Ineffable Plan?”

“Nobody knows. It’s in the name, isn’t it? It’s Ineffable. And God isn’t talking to anyone these days.” He looked away from Jesse long enough to pick up his new drink, and missed the glance that Jesse was giving to Tulip’s wide-eyed  _ look. _ “Anyway. After the Apocalypse didn’t happen, we started getting closer to one another…”

* * *

“We were quite happy, for a while. A few good years of peace. We got ourselves a cottage in the South Downs. Sometimes we’d go on holiday. We watched the aurora borealis over… the Westfjords…[3]

Aziraphale went silent. After waiting a moment for him to continue, Cassidy looked up, and saw that the angel’s head had flopped to one side, as if he’d passed out suddenly. “Zira? Yeh all right up there?”

Another moment later, Aziraphale jolted upright again. Startled awake, if he’d in fact been asleep. Breathless, he continued:

“Genesis. Neither of us suspected it. No one saw it coming. If Agnes Nutter did, she never wrote it down. Angels and demons… we simply didn’t know we  _ could  _ reproduce with one another.”

That, at least, Cassidy could relate to. “Think you’re safe, and yeh don’t use protection. Tale as old as time, mate.”

“Quite.” Under the fatigue, Aziraphale almost sounded amused. “Although I daresay it wasn’t a conventional birth. Neither of us carried Genesis, as one would a human child. It wasn’t created with its own body. It spun into being between us, like the arms of galaxies intertwining. It grew stronger with every intimate encounter. Sometimes, it was as if all three of us were breathing as one.”

“Right,” Cassidy butted in, “I appreciate the storytellin’ flair, but I don’t need the details of your intimate encounters.”

“Oh —” Aziraphale started again, which might have been the stuttering start of an apology, or the trembling prelude to further description. He was interrupted, however, by a loud clanging from the cell door, the lock being turned, the latch being pulled. In walked two guards, alongside a woman with severe dark hair and the Grail’s white-and-red uniform: Featherstone.

“Well,” said Cassidy. “if it isn’t Nurse Ratched, come to bring us our lithium.”

“A literary reference!” Aziraphale exclaimed from above. “Excellent.”

“Shut your mouth and put the wings away,” Featherstone snapped, “or we saw them off.”

Aziraphale made a whimpering sort of noise, and the wings vanished.

“Shackle him.” One guard grabbed at Cassidy’s dirty t-shirt, pulling him to his feet. The other undid the ankle cuff chaining him to the wall, and fit him with a couple of fresh ones.

“Guard your necks, fellas,” Featherstone went on, fixing Cassidy with a level gaze. “This thing could go feral at any moment.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t yeh.” Any reason to rough him up. Cassidy wouldn’t be giving them the satisfaction.

Featherstone didn’t blink. “Let’s get one thing clear: I could have these men toss you over the ramparts in broad daylight. You’d be dust before you hit the ground.” She leaned in, ever so slightly. “They wouldn’t need an excuse.” She paused to let the point land, then straightened up and turned on the heel of her immaculate white boots. “Now come on. You’ll be late for class.[4]”

They left, and the sound of the door closing rang off the tower walls for several long seconds.

“...He’s a vampire?” Aziraphale mused, now to no one but himself. “Good Lord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1Tulip, an expert on cars from a young age, would recognize a Bentley with a full roof built into the chassis as one from the 1930s — unlike a couple of fantasy authors in the 1980s who did not, as one of them later lamented, have access to Google.[return to text]
> 
> 2Also involved was the swipe of a matte black credit card, which was _so _black it seemed to absorb the light surrounding it.[return to text]
> 
> 3Readers looking for a fluffier palate cleanser after this fic might be interested in the author’s one-shot “This One’s For You,” where Crowley and Aziraphale talk about seeing the aurora borealis in the future tense.[return to text]
> 
> 4”Class” here was referring to the seminar on Advanced Torture, which was set to start elsewhere in the compound in ten minutes. Allfather Starr had called in one of his preferred torturers to perform the demonstration.[return to text]


	3. First Attempt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for every two weeks — Chapter Three was delayed due to DragonCon, then I wound up having to shove this fic to one side for other time-sensitive creative projects. But now it's November, and I'm signed up for NaNoWriMo with this fic as my goal! I want to particularly thank everyone who bookmarked and left comments and kudos. You've been a big part of keeping me motivated to return to this!

Grail Operative Johanne Skovgaard took long, purposeful strides through the corridor of the stronghold. Her shoulders and back were ramrod straight, and the nods she gave her fellow operatives as she passed were sharp and professional. She pushed a cart in front of her, and on the cart was a crate: the long, slender kind used for delivering rocket launchers.

In one particular corridor, Skovgaard gave a particularly sharp nod to Operative Biskup, who turned on his heel and began to walk at her side.

Skovgaard wheeled the cart into a maintenance closet. Biskup shut the door behind her, snapped on the lightswitch, and took a couple of crowbars from a nearby shelf.

Crowbars in hand, they positioned themselves on either side of the crate. The nails holding down the lid snapped upward.

With a hiss and a ripple of motion, a black and red serpent slithered from the crate, across the linoleum floor. Biskup, the taller of the two, strode to the wall, reached up, and flipped open the air vent.

Crowley climbed the wall and disappeared inside. [1] He flicked his tongue out between his lips, scenting the air. Metal and dust, on the main, but — he was passing another outlet, and oh, that was a whiff of blood. A very strong whiff of blood, with the lingering scent of gunpowder. Another flick: people, quite a lot of people, but no Aziraphale. Crowley slithered on. He knew he had to get away from the central part of the stronghold, where they kept the offices and classrooms and medical facilities. He had to get to the east dungeons.

It got hotter the farther he went. At some point, the light that filtered through the vents changed from LED white to analog yellow, and when Crowley peered out of them, he saw stone. He nudged his nose against the grate and felt only the most minor bit of resistance before the screws holding it closed kindly decided to spin themselves loose and clatter to the floor.

Crowley slipped into the corridor, coiled up on the floor and lifted up his head, allowing his sides to sprout shoulders and arms and his tail to split into legs. The second he’d settled into his humanoid form, he saw a flash of movement to his left, heard the click of a sidearm pistol being loaded, and a shout: “Get on the ground!”

Crowley turned toward the Grail soldier who’d discovered him and coolly lifted his hand as his fingers snapped. The soldier’s trigger finger stopped, just shy of squeezing. Everything about him stopped. His eyes widened with alarm, then went blank.

For a moment, Crowley was still as well. Although he was standing up straight, he still looked coiled as he stared down the frozen soldier. He crossed the space between them in three strides, stepped past the muzzle of the pistol and up to the soldier’s side. One hand went to the soldier’s wrist, the other to the gun barrel — carefully, but decisively, Crowley pulled the pistol from his hands. 

“_ Guns _.” The blessed thing was loaded, too. Crowley held it by the top part of the grip, dangling it as if it were a dirty dishrag, and leaned in close to the soldier’s face. “You’re gonna count down from a thousand in your mind, then wake up and have a good long think about what you’re really doing here.”

Before moving on, he slid the gun into the open vent. The screws hopped off the floor and were twirling back into place while Crowley started putting distance between himself and the soldier. He paused at a fork in the corridor, sniffed the air with a curl of his lip, and headed off to the right.

_ Aziraphale. _He was here, somewhere, under the dust and mildew. When Crowley found the door, he didn’t bother miracling the lock open and causing a racket: he simply vanished on one side of the door and appeared on the other, looking all around, then up…

“Crowley…?” The weak murmur reached him the instant he laid eyes on Aziraphale, who was barefoot, stripped to the waist, and suspended by chains. Two thick chains connected to either side of the tower, and shackled to Aziraphale’s wrists.

“I am getting you out of here,” Crowley growled, and lifted his hands.

“Wait — _ ah! _” Aziraphale let out a wail. A series of carvings in his shackles flared with white light. Crowley flinched, dropped the miracle, and the light blinked off. There was a shudder in Aziraphale’s voice: “Miracles won’t work.”

Black wings unfolded from Crowley’s back. With two great flaps, he rose to where one of the chains met the wall, found footing and a hand-hold among the jutting bricks. From there, he had a clearer view of the symbols on Aziraphale’s cuffs.

“Enochian.” Crowley made a frustrated sound through his teeth. Of _ course _someone at the Grail knew Enochian… “But the chains — they’re just chains, yes?”

Aziraphale nodded. Crowley closed a hand around the chain in front of him, and an orange glow started to emanate from under his palm. After another second, heat shimmers were rippling up between his fingers.

It’d work for a backup plan, but it was going to be tricky and take time. And every second Crowley had to see Aziraphale like this — dirty, in pain, robbed of his dignity — was another second too long. The fire in his hand flashed white. The metal started to soften.

“What the hell have they been doing?”

“Asking a terrible lot of questions I don’t have the answers to.”

Crowley felt the chain bend and stretch, and reached out with his opposite hand to grasp the part that was still cold, hard metal. He dug his heels into his tiny ledges of stone, then pushed off. A flap of his wings was barely enough to keep the both of them from plummeting to the ground. With a series of strained, midair bobs, Crowley got himself over to the opposite wall, and the opposite chain. 

“Say the word, angel, and I’ll burn this place to the ground.”

Aziraphale was letting himself hang like a marionnette from his arms. “I just want to go home.”

“Yeah, well.” The miniature furnace inside Crowley’s hand roared. “Maybe I want to do some burning.”

“The Allfather would escape at the first sign of trouble. It would be pointless.”

“Could put a dent in their whole blasted apocalyptic business, though.” The second chain went slack in his hand. There was a good deal of scraping, clanking, and grunting in the next few seconds, but Crowley managed to keep Aziraphale from falling like a sack of potatoes. He lowered first Aziraphale, then himself to the ground. Paused there, to take in the state of his angel one more time. “I have to say, that sounds like a point.”

Aziraphale was bending his arms to weigh the shackles on his wrists, and standing as if slightly afraid to move. “I need to tell you —” With a shudder and a gasp, he buckled forward into Crowley’s arms. One trembling breath later, he went on: “God is here.”

It didn’t sound like that was what he’d been going to say. Crowley glanced over his shoulder, like maybe God had appeared behind him suddenly. But no.

“What?”

“God,” Aziraphale insisted, “is here in Masada. Can’t you feel it?”

Crowley looked down at the pain in Aziraphale’s eyes. “I could care less where God is right now.”

In a blink, the cell was empty.

* * *

Not ten minutes after breaking him out of a torture chamber, at the front doors of Masada, Jesse Custer had punched Cassidy in the face.

It was about Tulip, of course. Jesse had dared Cassidy to say her name again, and Cassidy had risen to the bait. 

Anyway, the rescue attempt had come to a standstill when they’d arrived to find the doors slammed shut.

Cassidy was on his back, one hand reaching up to shove at Jesse’s jaw, the other lifting to try and block the left hook he saw coming his way. But Jesse’s fist never shot forward. He stopped, and stared at something Cassidy had to crane his neck to see. Two figures, one supporting the other, black and white wings folded together.

“Zira! Is that your boyfriend?” As Jesse stood up off him, Cassidy pushed himself up onto his elbows, and brought a finger to his bloody lip, assessing the damage. “Good.”

“Dunno what the hell happened to Tulip.” Jesse stalked over to a panel on the wall with a big red button and mashed it with the side of his fist. Nothing happened. Jesse turned to Crowley. “Can you do anything about these doors?”

The doors, which had slammed shut on a hapless Grail lackey. That had been the scene as Jesse and Cassidy had found it: the doors closed, a pair of legs sticking out from the seam between them. A shiny pulp oozed out of the seam, in bits of red and brown.

Crowley tilted his head, but Aziraphale spoke first.

“Wait!” Aziraphale placed a hand on Crowley’s arm, and shakily stood up taller. He took one step, testing his own strength, then another, more confident. Crowley followed him for a couple more steps before letting him go. Aziraphale stepped forward, his hands raising. “She’s suffering…”

“They’re still alive?” As Aziraphale passed by, Cassidy glanced from him to the viscera. “Jayzus.”

Aziraphale knelt on the stone near where the woman’s feet rested, at angles feet were not supposed to rest. He laid a hand on the back of one calf, and the flesh twitched, or perhaps only shifted, under his touch, then went still.

For a moment, the whole room went still.

The silence was broken by an echoing, metallic _ clang _, and a rumbling as the doors began to open. The disembodied legs fell, along with the remains that had been crushed between the doors. A bright beam of sunlight slashed across the floor to the opposite wall.

“Let’s move.” Crowley was helping Aziraphale to his feet again, and then the two were stepping into the open air. Jesse was behind them.

Cassidy stood with the sun warming the fabric over his shins, looking at the bright blue sky beyond the doors. Jesse, noticing he was alone, stopped and turned back.

“You need a jacket or somethin’? You’re free!”

Cassidy’s eyes lifted to where Aziraphale and Crowley were flying away, two pairs of wings flapping almost in sync.

“Free to what?”

* * *

_ “Tomorrow, we go again.” _

The Holy Bar and Grail, the former Grail haunt they’d taken over as a base, stood dark and silent at night. Even the neon sign had been shut off. It was so quiet — and still, Jesse’s boots barely made a sound as he stepped off the porch and onto the sand. Still, he didn’t hear Crowley until the fallen angel’s voice piped up behind him.

“Smoke?”

Crowley was slinking forward from the total darkness under the porch awning, pulling a case of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. Jesse pivoted, slow and casual, and reached out to accept the offer. He lifted his father’s Zippo to the tip, while Crowley flicked his cigarette against his tongue like it was a match, then flipped it around to take the first drag.

“Does it talk to you?” Crowley asked after a moment. “Genesis. Does it ever…” He paused again, as if searching for other words, before he settled on: “...does it ever say anything?”

Jesse watched a plume of smoke billow from his lips and into the darkness. “Sometimes, I think it does… Even if it doesn’t use words. I been without it a couple of times, since it first came to me. I can always tell when it’s gone.”

“You can sense it?”

Jesse nodded.

“Does it say something, if I say… I’m really sorry?”

Jesse listened.

“Doesn’t say anything.” He took a short pull off his cigarette. “What you sorry for?” Crowley’s raised eyebrows prompted him to elaborate: “In my experience, can’t really be sorry if you don’t know what for.”

“I just wish there’d been another way, sometimes. After Genesis came into being, both sides were after us for it. We couldn’t hold them off forever. And, well, at least the angels swore not to use it for their own purposes. Hell would’ve done all sorts of terrible things…” Crowley turned his head. Those dark lenses didn’t have the same weight as naked eyes, but Jesse still felt himself being examined. “I can tell it likes you. Genesis never wanted to be contained anywhere. Not with us. Not with the angels. Somehow, with you, it stays.”

“This scientist working for the Grail? She said it was ‘cause I’m the perfect balance of good and evil.”

“Sounds like half-baked Nazi bollocks to me.”

Jesse snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, maybe. Don’t change that they found something that worked. They were able to… inject this genetic cocktail into a person, made them able to hold onto Genesis. I made sure they didn’t hold it for long.”

Silence and smoke. The cigarettes were half gone.

Crowley was the next one to speak. “You were headed somewhere.”

“I’ve had a vision,” said Jesse. “I know where I need to go now.”

“We’ll go as soon as Cassidy gets out.”

Jesse looked over his shoulder, back toward the diner. He shook his head. “I can’t stay here one more day.” He gestured with his smoking hand, already starting to step toward the road: “Thanks for the cigarette.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere.” The change in Crowley’s voice was enough to give Jesse pause, and wait for him to go on — which Crowley did, leaning forward, his voice cracking: “God is here, in Masada — God’s everywhere, but Aziraphale sensed the holy presence. Don’t make me choose. Between him and Genesis. Please.”

Jesse took in the state of Crowley, and gradually, his expression softened. “I won’t do that… I wouldn’t do that.” He glanced toward his boots, then looked up again with a nod of assurance. “I’ll tell you where I’m goin’. You can make up your mind to come after me, or not. But before you decide, you’re gonna ** _gimme a twenty-four hour head start_ **.”

Crowley’s posture slackened, a release of the forward momentum he’d been holding onto. “You don’t trust anyone at all, do you?”

Jesse pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket: the crude sketch of the rock formation he’d seen in his vision. “It’s a desert. You know where it is?” He gave Crowley a good, long look, and waited for the silent nod before asking: “Where is it?”

Crowley’s chin ticked upward by a millimeter, the only sign that his gaze was shifting from the paper to Jesse’s face. “Australia.”

“Well, then — guess I’m goin’ to Australia.” Jesse folded the paper back up again, slipped it into his pocket. “Twenty-four hours,” he said as he took a step back, turned, and continued on toward the road.

Crowley stood there and watched, cigarette smoldering between his fingers, until Jesse was just a dark dot on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1The plan had been this: find the largest congregation of Grail operatives outside the stronghold in Masada. Jesse would use Genesis and compel them to work for Tulip, getting them at least a dozen men on the inside in one go. On the day of the break-in, Jesse would step inside the stronghold to distract Herr Starr. Starr was expecting him, after all — Jesse could pass it off as a parley, easy. Crowley would get himself smuggled in. Jesse would rescue Cassidy, Crowley would rescue Aziraphale, and they all would meet up at the door to the outside, where Tulip would have been holding down the escape route.
> 
> Crowley had successfully gotten himself smuggled in. It had all gone well, up to that point.[return to text]


	4. Jailbreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someday I will learn my lesson and not impose a strict writing schedule on myself. Thank you to everyone who has bookmarked or left a comment and/or kudos! They are still the fuel that keeps me going (along with the burning need to partially re-write Preacher season 4 now that I've seen the whole thing).

Cassidy’s face ached just under the cheekbone, where the Grail guard’s boot had connected with it. The rest of him was sore, frayed nerves under perfectly healed skin. All that remained of the latest bout of torture was the pain.

Nothing new under the sun, he thought as he laid in the dirt, staring up past where Aziraphale had been hanging the day before. Nothing new ever again.

“Cassidy? Are you there?”

The voice had an echo to it, as if Aziraphale were speaking to him from behind glass. Cassidy didn’t move.

“Can you hear me? Am I coming through?”

Cassidy let a long sigh out through his nose. When he spoke, it was barely over a mumble. “I hear yeh, birdman.”

“We’re all so sorry you got left behind. Crowley and Tulip are working on the plan now.”

“Y’know, he didn’t even bring me an umbrella?” Cassidy kept on staring upward. “One of two friends I have left in the world. Came halfway round the globe to bust me out, but he didn’t think to bring a bloody umbrella.”

“You’re talking about the man you were brawling with by the front door? I’m afraid you’re not the only one he’s disappointed in the past twenty-four hours. He  _ was  _ here, or so Crowley said, while I was resting… but by the time I emerged, he was gone. Crowley hasn’t said where, but I can tell he knows  _ something… _ ”

“He took off?” That got Cassidy to turn his head, to face the apparition that sat in the center of the cell. Aziraphale, dressed in a clean and well-loved suit, sitting in a chair, hands folded over his knees. Cassidy could see clear through him to the other side of the prison. “Wow. Look at you. Yeh clean up nice. Good job gettin’ out.”

The apparition of Aziraphale was close enough that Cassidy could see the soft smile on his face. How it stopped just short of his eyes. “Tulip was so sorry to hear you’d got left behind.”

“She shouldn’t be.”

Aziraphale’s eyes twitched at the corners. “So was I.”

“You?” Cassidy said. “Yeh don’t know much about me at all. I don’t think yeh’d be so sorry if yeh did.”

“Cassidy.” Aziraphale’s tone turned firm, but patient, like that of a long-suffering parent. “Crowley is a  _ demon…  _ Granted, he was always a bit different to other demons, but… what I’m saying is, I’m not as judgmental as you might think. Anyway, you know you  _ can’t  _ stay here. They’ll destroy you.”

Cassidy turned his head — back to gazing toward the top of the tower. “I don’t deserve nothin’ else.”

* * *

The back area of the Holy Bar and Grail was crowded. It was barely big enough to fit the two cars, and the Cheville sprawled across the larger part of the room. The Bentley, meanwhile, sat curled up in a corner. If it had had a tail, it would have been delicately curled around its legs.[1]

While Tulip and Crowley had been talking, she’d been working, taking a look at the undercarriage of the Cheville. She rolled out from underneath the car and sat up to look at Crowley, who was leaning against the far wall.

“How come you never take those glasses off?”

“I have sensitive eyes.”

Tulip hummed, put down the tool she’d been holding and picked up a large wrench. “Cassidy wears shades outside all the time, ‘cause the sun would burn his eyeballs out. But we’re inside. And you’re not a vampire.”

“Nope.”

Satisfied with the lack of elaboration, at least for the moment, Tulip gestured her wrench at the Bentley. “I couldn’t help takin’ a quick peek under the hood.” She whistled. “You got some serious upgrades in that thing.”

“Have I?”

“Body of a ‘33, with a dual overhead camshaft, turbocharged engine?” Tulip shrugged her head to one side. “That’s serious.”

“Yeah, it’s sort of…” Crowley glanced toward the car. “...evolved, over the years.”

She’d been on her way back under the Cheville, but that got her to pause. “Evolved?” Tulip’s eyes flicked toward the Bentley. “What’s that mean?”

Crowley shrugged all the way up his long neck. “I’ve never had work done on it. The occasional tune-up, once upon a time. But all the upgrades, they just happened.”

“You’re shittin’ me.” Tulip insisted. “It upgraded on its own?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows as if to say,  _ and that’s not all.  _ “Even has its own taste in music.”

* * *

“In the end, I just thought it's better they think I'm dead, y’know? Instead of seeing what I'd become. I turned my back on a friend in need. And I got what I deserved, y’know? I don't blame you angel types for givin' up on me… Just another Irishman feelin' sorry for himself.”

Aziraphale had stayed quiet while Cassidy had been telling his story. As the story reached its end, he let silence hang in the air for a moment.

“War,” he observed after the pause, “is often far worse than people imagine it will be, until they see it with their own eyes. But that is no reason to condemn yourself like this. Forget about what Tulip ought to do, or not do.  _ I  _ want to help you escape.” Aziraphale straightened in his chair, his fingers curled delicately over his knees, and he nodded. “I  _ will  _ help you escape.”

Cassidy didn’t look thrilled at the promise. Still, he asked: “So is there a plan?”

Aziraphale’s head turned as if listening. His eyes brightened again as he looked back at Cassidy, though there was perhaps a touch of strain at the edges.

“They’re hard at work on it.”

* * *

_ You’re my best friend… _

The song ended, Tulip hit the eject button, and the DragonForce CD slid out of the slot. With a frown and a nod, she returned the CD to its case.

“Well,” she concluded. “That’s weird. You’re a weird guy, Crowley…” She lifted both hands and let them fall onto the steering wheel, fingers curling into the grooves. “And I like your car.”

If there’d been something she was going to say beyond that, for a moment, it got away from her. Tulip’s face started to fall, her smile vanishing, eyes going distant as she stared past the Bentley’s windshield. After a few seconds, she caught herself spacing out, and blinked herself out of it, then sat back. She rallied with a sigh, a shrug of her shoulders, and a nonchalant nod. “So you can… you can pretty much swoop in and pluck Cass outta that dungeon, right? And then we can…” She curled her hand around the gear shaft, fingers curling, knuckles going white. “...then we can get goin’.”

Crowley shifted his shoulders in something that wasn’t quite a shrug, though it was a sight more  _ pretty sure  _ than  _ I dunno _ . “Where are you gonna go?”

“Wherever we want.” Tulip’s voice was flat. “You sure you can just swoop in and get him?”

Crowley sucked a breath through his teeth. “It’d help if I could get a precise idea of where to pick him up,” he admitted. “I can pop into any room in Masada, sure, but every second I’m inside those walls, I’m vulnerable. We don’t have people on the inside anymore, and the Grail  _ can  _ hold angels. If, by some chance, they’ve taken Cassidy out of his cell… how do I find him without this turning into a  _ third  _ rescue mission?”

“You  _ don’t  _ find him,” Aziraphale spoke from the doorway, grabbing both of the others’ attention. “Because he will come to the exact spot where you want him to be. With my help.” The look he shot Crowley on those last three words seemed to foresee some sort of objection; when Crowley opened his mouth to deliver on those expectations, Aziraphale gave a disapproving tug at his waistcoat. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. It’s not any more dangerous than what you’re doing, and it’ll work.” He straightened up, putting a physical button on the point… then his eyes darted back and forth. “At least, it should. I’ve never attempted it with a vampire before.”

Still in the Bentley’s driver’s seat, Tulip swiveled her head from Aziraphale to Crowley. “ _ What  _ is he talkin’ about?”

* * *

Cassidy frowned. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“It’s the quickest way to get you out.” The projection of Aziraphale sat in front of him again, in the center of the cell. “This way, Crowley will know just where and when to find you.”

“Yeah, but are yeh sure it’s safe? Am I not gonna —” Cassidy lifted a hand and made a bursting motion with his fingers. Aziraphale answered the unfinished question with hesitation. Cassidy’s shoulders sagged. “Eh. Fuck it; if it’s this, or bloody Bensonhurst...”

“I don’t  _ know _ it will work,” Aziraphale admitted, with short reluctance, before quickly adding: “But I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t. Vampires aren’t demons. You’ve got nothing to do with Hell.”

“Nothin’ at all?” Cassidy’s frown became a sneer. “No offense, Zira. I don’t mean to be tellin’ yeh your angel-y business, but. A vampire’s a damned creature, is he not?”

“Plenty of humans are damned, and it’s not as if they’d be physically incapable of taking on an angel. It’s only…” Aziraphale took a second to locate the exact words. “…it matters whether the person is open to it. I don’t think many truly damned people would welcome the experience.”

The chains clanked as Cassidy’s hands shifted. “How do I do it?”

“You’ll need to make yourself a receptive vessel. You not only have to say the words, you must declare them with conviction.” Aziraphale gave a short, vigorous pump with his fist.

The next exchange between the two happened without words. Cassidy lifted his eyebrows. Aziraphale’s fist uncurled and he held his hand out, palm upward. Was it really that simple? Yes, it was.

“Are those any words in particular?”

“All you have to do is invite me in.”

“All right.” Cassidy straightened up, his back leaned against the wall. “Aziraphale. I would like you… to be inside me. Oh, Jaysus Christ. I can’t say it like that.” He frowned, then lifted both arms like he was going in for a hug. “Come on, now, bring it in.” When Aziraphale’s only response was a small, silent smile, Cassidy’s efforts flagged. “Well, tell me what the hell to say if I’m not sayin’ it right, man! Help me out!”

“It takes a moment. Remember —” Another fist pump.

“Right.” Cassidy didn’t sound overly encouraged. He looked to the floor, half defeated.

Something clattered in the distance, a long way down the twisted and close corridors. It was followed by a voice: a low tone that stood out against the high-pitched whistle of the wind outside.

Cassidy looked through Aziraphale’s ghostly form and focused his eyes on the door. Frankie’s voice wasn’t getting any closer, but he was droning on about something or other. When Cassidy spoke next, his voice wasn’t much louder than Frankie’s echo.

“That rifle-wieldin’ arsehole is gonna keep on torturin’ me until he croaks.” He let his eyes drop from the door, chin falling toward his chest. “If I don’t get out of this cell soon, I’m never gonna see Tulip again. So that’s it. I need your help, I want you to come in and help me, Aziraphale.”

For a moment, he waited with his head bowed, knees bent upward with his forearms resting against them, his palms outstretched and facing upward. Outside, the wind quieted. Frankie had stopped talking. Cassidy looked up, and Aziraphale’s apparition was no longer in front of him.

He glanced around, looking to see if anything was different. Scratched his head. Gestured again towards his chest. “Please come on in. Make yourself at home.” Silence. Cassidy lifted both index fingers in the air before pointing them at himself. “I want you in here right now! What, are you waitin’ on a bloody red carpet? Come inside me, you — !”

The wind through the tiny window at the top of the dungeon tower turned from a whistle to a roar. Something — clouds, or gouts of sand — raced across the sun, causing the light to flicker. The stones trembled, and shook dust from their edges. Cassidy’s hands clasped against the back of his head, and he tried to shout, but there was another sound, a distorted voice that was getting louder… and then it was silent. The dust drifted lazily through the light. Cassidy sat slumped over like a ragdoll.

Until he lifted his head, stretched his jaw, and started to roll out his joints.[2]

_ “Oh my.”  _ That was Aziraphale’s voice. Cassidy’s arms stretched forward and turned over. Aziraphale was examining them. _ “It is… musty in here.” _

“Hey, now.” Cassidy sneered the posh accent off his lips. “Watch it. For a hundred and twenty years I’m not doin’ so bad for meself.” His nose wrinkled. “Can yeh read my thoughts in there?”

_ “Not to worry. I won’t go prying.” _

“Probably best.” Frankie’s Brooklyn twang was back, and it, along with the sound of several footsteps and metal rolling over stone, were getting closer. Cassidy held a finger to his lips. “ _ Shh _ . He’s comin’.”

Frankie Toscani swung open the door and walked in: slicked-back hair, a sharp Italian suit, and a murderous smile. Behind him, two Grail guards were wheeling a gurney. Frankie stepped forward, and his shadow fell over Cassidy.

“Time to go to Bensonhurst.”

* * *

They wheeled Cassidy — and Aziraphale — down the rough-paved corridor, strapped to the gurney. Cassidy’s mouth and jaw were covered by a grated half mask, making him look like a knockoff Hannibal Lecter. Frankie lifted a walkie-talkie, which sputtered out static as he activated it. “Vampire coming up. Three minutes.”

Another Grail guard stepped into the intersection ahead. One hand was balancing the automatic rifle slung around his shoulder. The other lifted in the universal sign for ‘stop.’ “Hold, please.”

“What’s going on?” Frankie glanced over the guard’s shoulder as a dual line of soldiers started crossing behind him.

“Emissary’s just arrived.”

“No shit.” Now Frankie was craning his head to get a look. “Heaven or Hell?”

Several steps behind Frankie, the guards waited with their charge. With no real plan as yet, and a short potential window of opportunity, Cassidy muttered — to himself, as far as the guards knew — “Got somethin’ for this?”

There was no Enochian on the shackles they’d fitted him with. With a sound like a soft rush of air, and an almost imperceptible click, one of the cuffs unlocked. Ahead of them, the procession had nearly passed the intersection. In between the lines of Grail soldiers was a man of average height, with slick hair parted to one side and a distinct postage-stamp mustache.

Once they’d passed, Frankie turned back with a starstruck grin. “Did you see —? Hoo boy! I should’ve taken a picture.”

He beckoned the guards to keep following him down the cleared corridor. The gurney rattled as they started to push it again, and so did the shackle that had fallen from Cassidy’s wrist. Frankie was going on, talking to himself as much as anyone else: “Old Adolf, when he wanted to get inside your head, he’d just reach in and take it…” A rumpled thudding sound made him turn again. “The hell —?”

One of the guards had already collapsed, and the second was falling at Cassidy’s feet, his head twisted several degrees past anything survivable. With a growl, Frankie leveled his Lee-Enfield rifle and fired off a round. Cassidy ducked with a scream that was too high-pitched to be his, but when he straightened up again, his eyes were glimmering with vengeful intent. Frankie cocked the rifle again.

He didn’t have time for a second shot. With a dash forward, Cassidy took hold of the barrel and shoved it upward, wrenching it from Frankie’s hands as he  _ threw  _ the man, letting him tumble to the floor and into a wall. By the time Frankie got his bearings and found his feet, the rifle had been dropped. Cassidy was squared up, fists raised in front of his face. Frankie bounced on the balls of his feet. Ready to go.

Blows were traded, jabs and wild haymakers. Frankie landed a knee against Cassidy’s ribs. Cassidy hit Frankie with a sharp hook, then an uppercut that had Frankie falling to the floor again. Cassidy tore the Lecter mask off his face before going in for a real beating: he grabbed Frankie’s hair and pulled him upward for a punch to the face, landed blows against the torso and groin. Before letting Frankie fall a third time, Cassidy grasped his head and slammed a knee into it.

Frankie found his hands mere inches from the rifle Cassidy had let fall. He grabbed it and rose up once again, swinging the rifle like a bat — slow enough for Cassidy to get his hands on it, and just like that, the tables turned back. A few more hits, and Cassidy had the gun himself. A desperate Frankie rushed him, and Cassidy slammed the rifle into his stomach, swung it downward to hook on an ankle and trip him. Down Frankie went a fourth time, and this time, he didn’t look too keen on trying to get up.

_ “Good show!”  _ Cassidy’s torso swiveled as Azriaphale looked from Frankie to the fallen guards. At the sight of the broken man at Cassidy’s feet, he modulated his praise to a more measured tone: _ “Erm. Well done. Now let’s get going. Crowley is expecting us.” _

“In a moment.” Cassidy bent to grab the waistband of Frankie’s trousers and tear them apart at the back seam. Frankie, his fate starting to dawn on him, started to cry and beg. Cassidy picked up the Lee-Enfield.

“No… not like this —” Frankie’s plea was cut off when Cassidy rammed the business end of the rifle where the sun didn’t shine.

Aziraphale made an  _ “Eugh” _ noise through Cassidy’s throat.  _ “I think you’ve made your point, Cassidy. Surely he doesn’t deserve this.” _

“You’re in my head now, Zira.” Cassidy’s hands tightened in the Italian silk of Frankie’s suit, and he lifted him, balancing the butt of the rifle on the stone floor. He shoved down, impaling Frankie by one more inch. Frankie let out a strangled scream. “Maybe you can see what he did.”

_ “I really think we ought to…”  _ Aziraphale stopped. The corridor went silent, but for Frankie’s whimpering, and Cassidy’s eyes went distant, reflecting Aziraphale’s growing horror.  _ “Oh… oh my…”  _ His eyes lifted back to Frankie’s face, the look of horror became a look of disgust... and, after one more moment of contemplation, the two blended into one another. _ “Oh,  _ Lord… _ ” _

Cassidy took control again with a hiss of breath through bared teeth, and snapped a hand downward to squeeze the trigger. Frankie’s whimpers ended with a blast and a wet, splattering burst of noise, blood, and brain matter. The corridor wall behind him was painted red. Cassidy admired the picture with a giddy grin.

_ “I despise this place,”  _ Aziraphale lamented.

“Well, then,” said Cassidy, “what the hell are we waitin’ for?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1If it had had legs.[return to text]
> 
> 2If either Aziraphale or Cassidy realized what those final words had been before the wind kicked up, neither of them would ever know, because they would never speak of it again. The writer can at this time neither confirm nor deny any future occurrences of awkward looks between the two of them.[return to text]


End file.
